Bibliographic management software applications help you manage and organize all the citations you develop in the discovery of various information resources during your work on a literature review.

During the writing of your literature review, you will likely accumulate many citations, such as to

• books (or chapters of books)
• articles from academic journals
• articles from magazines or newspapers
• annual reports
• conference or convention proceedings
• business reports
• industry standards or trade codes
• videos
• audio files

... amongst many other sources.

Bibliographic management software applications can help you keep all this data organized.

As well, most bibliographic management software applications can help you configure your citations and build a bibliography or reference list for your literature review.

Using a particular bibliographic management software application is a matter of personal choice. Some individuals use a particular application in their literature reviews because it is used by their university, department, research colleagues, or friends.

The VIU Library has prepared a Citation Management: Tools & Alternatives guide that compares various bibliographic management software applications that can help you manage your references.

In addition to RefWorks and Mendeley, there are other bibliographic management software applications such as EndNote or Zotero.